Various types of auditory prosthesis systems have been developed to assist patients who have severe (e.g., complete) hearing loss. For example, cochlear implant systems may provide a sense of hearing for sensorineural hearing loss patients by providing electrical stimulation representative of sound directly to stimulation sites within the cochlea. As another example, electro-acoustic stimulation (“EAS”) systems may assist patients with some degree of residual hearing in the low frequencies (e.g., below 1000 Hz) by providing acoustic stimulation representative of low frequency audio content and electrical stimulation representative of high frequency content.
Many auditory prosthesis systems include a sound processor apparatus (e.g., a behind-the-ear (“BTE”) sound processing unit, a body worn device, etc.) configured to be located external to the patient. The sound processor apparatus may perform a variety of functions, such as processing audio signals presented to the patient, controlling an operation one or more implantable devices (e.g., one or more cochlear implants), and providing power to the one or more implantable devices.
A conventional sound processor apparatus may include an interface assembly that includes a plurality of contacts (e.g., a plurality of pins). One or more accessories and/or other types of external components may be connected to the sound processor apparatus by way of the interface assembly. Each contact included in the interface assembly is associated with a single dedicated function. For example, a particular contact may be used by the sound processor apparatus to receive programming data from a programming system while the programming system is connected to the sound processor apparatus by way of the interface assembly. However, the same contact may not be used to perform any other type of function while other types of external components (e.g., battery modules) are connected to the sound processor apparatus by way of the interface assembly.
Unfortunately, this limitation requires the use of an interface assembly that has a relatively large number of contacts (e.g., ten or more) in implementations where it is desirable for the sound processor apparatus to interchangeably connect to multiple external components. A high contact count necessarily increases the required physical size of the interface assembly, which in turn makes the sound processor apparatus undesirably large, bulky, and aesthetically unappealing.